Wife of Bernard Berenson and scholar of Italian paintings.
Mary Berenson was born Mary Smith to Robert Pearsall Smith (1827-1899), an
evangelizing preacher and Hannah Whitall (Smith)
(1832-1911), both of Quaker extraction. She was given the nick-name "Mariechen"
(little Mary) by a German nursemaid. She attended Smith College and Harvard Annex (later Radcliffe College).
At Harvard Annex she met the Scots-Irish Benjamin Francis Conn "Frank" Costelloe (1855-1899).
The future barrister and political reformer and Smith married
in 1885. The couple lived in England where they had two children. Mary Costelloe
met the young art historian Bernard Berenson (q.v.) during a visit he made to
the couple's cottage in 1890. Bored with her husband's work and the requirements
of a young mother, she separated from Costelloe in 1892, focusing on art and the
Austrian designer Hermann Obrist. Smith-Costelloe soon turned her interest
to art history and Berenson. Using the
pseudonym Mary Logan, Mary Costelloe wrote a long pamphlet, Guide to the Italian Pictures at Hampton Court:
with Short Studies of the Artists in 1894, which confirmed her as an art
authority, along with journal articles. The same year, Berenson's Venetian Painters,
largely written by Mary with Bernard adding the notes, appeared. The book made
Bernard Berenson's
reputation as an art historian. Tracing the history of Venetian painting over
four centuries, Venetian Painters would become a series of studies on
Italian schools (painting styles) Bernard would author with great assistance
from Mary. Mary became Berenson's companion, but Costelloe, being Roman
Catholic, declined a divorce. In 1897 she toured
the frescos in the hospital at Siena with Herbert Horne (q.v.), of whom Bernard Berenson approved.
Costelloe died suddenly in 1899 and she and Berenson married in 1900 in a small chapel on the estate of Villa I
Tatti, which Berenson had purchased. Among Mary Berenson's long-term
friendships was the writer Edith Wharton (q.v.). When a young
classics student from Oxford, Geoffrey Scott (q.v.), was hired to be Berenson's librarian at
I Tatti Mary immediately fell deeply in love with him. The three traveled
throughout Italy. When Scott failed to distinguish himself as a classical
student at Oxford, Mary introduced him to an architect who eventually
became his architectural partner, renovating I Tatti and the gardens as their first commission.
Mary Berenson published a small article, "A Tentative List of Italian Pictures Worth
Seeing," in Fiesole periodical in 1908.
Scott married in 1918 and this event, as well as her husband's latest lover, the
Parisian art collector Baroness Gabrielle La Caze, caused Mary to flee to England
where she suffered a nervous breakdown. The Berenson's income much diminished
because of the 1929 stock market crash and the couple curtailed their lavish
lifestyle. As a result, Bernard Berenson was secretly
retained by the Duveen firm to authenticate paintings and Mary took over the
financial aspects of the covert arrangement for Berenson. A 1931 operation
for cystitis left her debilitated. As the 1930s wore on, Mary
withdrew from the elaborate social hosting Bernard was attracting at I Tatti. His secretary Elisabetta "Nicky" Mariano (1887-1968), who had
replaced Scott in 1918, gradually took over these duties, becoming
Bernard's acknowledged final lover. The threesome traveled periodically
across the Mediterranean periodically, Mary writing her experiences. By
1935, Mary Berenson was too ill to travel on the final trips. She
continued to write of travels, despite not participating in them, as in her 1938
book, A Vicarious Trip to the Barbary
Coast. Mary continued to seek treatments for her ailments, some
psychosomatic, before
World War II. During World War II, as American expatriates, the Berensons
were prevented from leaving Italy because of Italy's Axis alliance. In
1944, Bernard and Marino hid in the home of a friend, fearful that his Jewish
heritage would make him a target, while Mary remained at I Tatti. She died
at the end of 1944 and is buried in the chapel at I Tatti where the couple had
been married. When Bernard died in 1959, he was placed beside her. Her
brother was the literary essayist Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946), who
encourage both Clark and John Russell (q.v.) in their writing careers.

Mary Berenson's contribution to her husband's art history is a matter of some
debate. An excellent writer who accompanied her husband through most of
his travels and debated art with him, it appears her hand in his books was
larger than previously thought. She edited all his work, some
significantly. The art historian A. Hyatt Mayor (q.v.) described Mary in
1925 as "tall, gray haired and buxom." Many remarked on the extreme
physical contrast to her husband who was slightly built, always shorter than
she, and younger. She and Bernard could not be faithful to one another and
seemed to many biographers to engage in affairs purely to torture each other (Morgan).